


flickering signifiers

by watername



Category: 2NE1, Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, references to era-appropriate racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24086020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watername/pseuds/watername
Summary: hollywood doesn’t love her, but chaerin is nothing if not stubborn, and love’s a fickle thing anyway.sometimes she might even hate hollywood right back, full of spit and sneer and gin and men who call her -well. she doesn’t give a shit what they call her.
Relationships: Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon/Lee Chaerin | CL
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	flickering signifiers

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from conniecorleone on tumblr: Cl/Gdragon (i think, you know who i mean), OldHollywood!AU

“chaerin, chae-rin,” she says over and over again. sharon - cheryl lynn - darling - doll - 

she thinks she hates the last one the most, but it’s said over the signed contract, so she grits her teeth and bears it. she explores the studio right after, finds the quiet room where they keep all the dusty records. there’s no funny business. just a nice conversation with a young woman who treats the records clerk like a lady, and not like a traitor just for aging.

she remembers her name - chaerin lee, pronounced careful with the exhalations twisting the cigarette smoke into curlicues - and her address for the mail - and that’s all she needs.

it’s easy to fall in love with hollywood. it’s a relationship she’s been bound for, its shadow stretched across like it was searching for her, hand in her father’s as they walked into the nickelodeon. 

hollywood doesn’t love her, but chaerin is nothing if not stubborn, and love’s a fickle thing anyway. 

sometimes she might even hate hollywood right back, full of spit and sneer and gin and men who call her -

well. she doesn’t give a shit what they call her. 

she finishes her drink and pulls an ugly face in the mirror, while she can.

* * *

it’s another woman who waves him over - another woman, given the advantage of her birth and who she sleeps with - 

(chaerin doesn’t care about the latter; she resents the former)

\- “jiyong,” she introduces him with surprising familiarity, and jiyong takes chaerin’s hand and bends towards it like they’re in one of those damn movies before coming back up with sardonicism on his smiling lips.

“chaerin,” she says. “charmed,” she adds, and it’s a lie, and that makes his smile more genuine even as the chatter turns to what they’re doing down at goldwyn pictures.

later, she pours herself a drink and he appears at her elbow.

“didn’t take you for a cancelled stamp, ms. lee,” he says.

“you can’t take me for anything,” she drawls back, but she obliges when he pushes an empty glass to her. judging by his breath, it seems a rare phenomenon.

“how long’s your contract?” he asks, and she flips him one finger, then three, then puts down her glass to hold up her other hand. six. he whistles between his teeth.

“lousy place,” he says. “don’t you love it?”

chaerin looks at him sidelong, grin eating up his slight face, making him seem a manic. the small lights of his eyes, almost hidden in his cheer, are too sharp for lies.

“i think your company is missing you,” she says instead, and she dances gracefully around down-at-goldwyn-pictures, her fluttering white hands, the perfect damsel chaerin lee, third-generation american, never would be.

* * *

he finds her at the cafeteria, sobriety and daylight making him a different creature.

he drinks coffee as greedily as liquor, spreads jam over his bread until it’s thick and red and stains his fingers.

he was a child actor, quit in the years after precocity faded. he matured himself through writing, stumbled his way into being a semi-functional adult. and he came back, signed an entirely different kind of contract.

his scripts are successful, even as it’s never his name on the clapboard.

“like i said - lousy place.”

“you were out, and you let yourself back in,” she points out, sipping delicately at her coffee, as proper as they could - as they do - ask for.

he smiles at her, flashes of a nighttime manic.

“i suppose you can call me a louse, then.”


End file.
